Fifty years ago, on Saturday, July 3, 1976, Latter-day Saints in the Upper Snake River Valley in Southeast Idaho gathered for a rodeo in celebration of the nation’s 200th birthday.
Earlier in the day, many residents had also participated in a bit of a haphazard Fourth of July parade down the streets of Rexburg, Idaho. Some of the floats for the parade had been borrowed from other cities. Other floats had been thrown together that morning, consisting of flatbed trucks or cars embellished with hand-painted signs carrying flag-waving children and youth.
The parade and other bicentennial activities almost didn’t happen. Plans for elaborate festivities had been in the works for months but four weeks prior to the commemoration disaster struck. The Teton Dam ruptured and sent a raging wall of water through Wilford, St. Anthony, Sugar City, Rexburg and other nearby communities.